Posts and Updates From the Field

The Bluebird Mechanicals premiered at Metro Arts in Brisbane, Australia from the 7 - 16 September 2017. We had a great season with supportive audiences and excellent reviews. Thanks to the Metro Arts team for having us!

Just wanted to mention how incredibly grateful and chuffed we are (as they say in Australia) to have been invited to be part of The Collaborations, an initiative of Canada’s National Arts Centre English Theatre. They have given The Bluebird Mechanicals some seeding money, as well as support of their expert advice and an outside eye for the final phase development of the work. Super excited to be heading to Banff in less than 2 weeks, as well and having this kind of support and belief behind the work that we do.

We've been accepted to take part in a theatre production residency in the beautiful wilds of Banff, Alberta in March 2016 and will be collaborating with our sound artist, Hayley Forward and video artist, Sam James to finish The Bluebird Mechanicals. Excited to head to this mountain retreat for some serious play. While we are up there we will build a prototype of the set and work in a fully equipped theatre to finalise the design elements of the work.

Nick and I headed to Wakefield for several days in August, house sitting an old farm and some animals while we did a mentorship with Nadia Ross from STO Union. She coached us on the ups and downs and ins and outs of running a performance making company, focusing on long term sustainability and goals and whipping our asses. Thanks to Emma Tibaldo from Playwrights' Workshop Montreal for encouraging us to apply to the Quebec government run initiative and pairing us up with Nadia.

Too Close to The Sun recently returned to Montreal after a month of residencies in Australia, where we completed a first draft of The Bluebird Mechanicals. The first two weeks were at Metro Arts, Brisbane. We endured flash flooding and hail storms and experimented with lighting and set design in the basement space. The residency culminated in an intimate showing of the first 30 minutes of the work. We then went to HotHouse Theatre's A Month in The Country to work in the tin shed by the old farmhouse we were staying in. We spent 5 days with our dramaturg, Campion Decent, nutting out some of the finer details before refining the script and doing some more devising. The bats and the cows were lovely company and the quiet of the country was the perfect place to get our work done. Didn't hurt to be living right by a bird sanctuary when so many birds appear in this work. Thanks to Australia Council for making this possible and to Kieran Swann and HotHouse for their generosity. The work is set to premiere in November 2015. More soon!